New World

Friday was a pretty uninspiring day, despite the fact that Huwyl was on the mend the weather was a lovely combination of ice rain and snow. Yum. For anyone unfamiliar with the joys of ice rain it is rain that turns to ice on contact, making the world your skating rink. Getting out to the chickens in the morning had a life-in-peril feeling as I slid around trying not to fall and break something on the concrete hard yet utterly slick earth beneath my feet. It was a day for being by the fire for sure.

But then Saturday dawned and it was a world remade. The trees had donned coats of diamonds, ice coating their branches and fluffy snow making the earth beneath shimmer. For a short while in the morning the sun came out and set the diamond forests alight, glowing from within it seemed, magical and ephemeral.

By the time I had finished walking the dogs, breaking the quiet with our crashing feet crunching through layers of ice and powder snow, the sun had hidden himself again behind clouds that would remain for the day. The shining cloaks were gone, tinkling to the ground as the day warmed and the wind moved the branches.

But in my mind’s eye it was all there, as bright and sharp as the cold wind rubbing at my red cheeks. I felt that something had shifted in me, simply by witnessing this glorious beauty; this extravagance laid on, it seemed, just for me. I felt sheer joy surrounded by sights so pure and fleeting. It lifted my heart and warmed me, I was being rewarded without any idea of the good deed I had done.

It has stayed with me, the feeling of magic and marvel, when I think of those moments spent outside with my camera, dashing from this to that trying to capture what I saw. The photographs do show some but inside my own remembering there is so much more. The feel of the wind, the warmth on my skin as the sun beat through my closed lids and, when I opened them, a world made new. A world of crystal and light. Shining.